GROSSMONT COLLEGE — The Griffins will face Southwestern College at home at 1 p.m. Saturday, still looking for their first win of the season.

The football team is 0-2 this year after dropping its opener 33-30 to San Diego Mesa and 34-7 to El Camino last weekend.
Despite the lopsided loss to El Camino, there are definite signs of improvement among the young Grossmont football players, according to head coach, Mike Jordan.

Jordan attributed the loss to a combination of mistakes made by all three squads: the offense, defense and special teams, “We were not securing the football”, he said; however, the number of turnovers dropped from five in the San Diego Mesa game to three against El Camino.

Grossmont football team practices at Griffin Field (Photo: Dylan Burke)

By Dylan Burke

GROSSMONT COLLEGE – Football coach Mike Jordan says he is looking forward to facing El Camino College in an away game Saturday in a continuation of the “very heated rivalry” that often “goes back and forth” in playoff tournaments.

What Jordan described as the “youngest team” he has coached in his six years at Grossmont will go into the game following a season opening loss last week to San Diego Mesa, 33-30—a loss blamed in large measure on inexperience and five turnovers.

Jordan told the GC Summit that his team needs to make fewer mistakes on the field. He said players need to follow their assignments better to make the plays work out.

For example, he said, if offensive line moves to the left when it is supposed to move to the right, it leaves the quarterback exposed and likely to be sacked.

Jordan has his own approach toward practices. Whereas many coaches will have their first-string team on the field through most, if not all of practices, Jordan has his second- and third-string players practice also. He said that he was very pleased with last Wednesday’s practice.

Tuning up the second and third stringers will prepare them for the later part of the season if members of the first string team are injured, the coach explained.

Asked how the team reacted to the loss to San Diego Mesa — a team which Grossmont typically beats– Jordan replied that some players were “devastated, as well they should be,” while others on the team, “did not know how to respond.”